This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

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SlutWalk London brought thousands onto the streets demanding protection for all rape survivors and prosecution for rapists.

On 1 July, Slut Means Speak Up is targeting the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for its appalling track record on rape.

FACTS: Over 90% of rapes are never reported. Of those reported, only 6.7% end in conviction. One in four women suffers domestic violence; at least two women a week are murdered by partners or ex-partners. In up to 90% of attacks on mothers, children are present; in 45-70% the father is violent to the children too. Over 30 women who reported rape have been disbelieved and imprisoned in the last 12 months. Asylum seekers who report rape and other torture are often deported. Sex workers who come forward risk prosecution.

We demand that the CPS:

1. Stop prosecuting rape survivors for so-called false allegations, and prosecute rapists instead.
Compelling evidence of rape is ignored, lost or dismissed by biased and bungling police and prosecutors. Survivors who have been prosecuted include: 1) Layla Ibrahim, a young woman attacked on the street and jailed for three years while pregnant; other rape survivors in the area have described a similar attacker. 2) Gail Sherwood, a 51-year-old mother of three jailed for two years after reporting being raped three times by an unknown stalker. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has refused to do anything to redress these miscarriages of justice. But the CPS is doing a review of such prosecutions – let’s tell them what we think.

2. Stop prosecuting sex workers working together for safety. Drop the prosecution of Sheila Farmer.
At Slutwalk, Ms Farmer described how after a vicious rape she couldn’t work alone. The brothel-keeping law makes it illegal for women to work together. But the CPS has discretion and must only prosecute when it is in the public interest. Ms Farmer is seriously ill – a diabetic since childhood, she suffers from a brain tumour. She could face a seven year prison sentence. This has already aggravated her life-threatening condition. Over 1000 people have emailed her MP that this prosecution is not in the public interest.

Black Women’s Rape Action Project, the English Collective of Prostitutes and Women Against Rape launched this protest at London SlutWalk as part of Slut Means Speak Up. Let’s all turn up at the CPS on 1 July to say we’ve had enough . . . of being blamed for rape by police and courts, of being deprived of protection, of being denied resources and left vulnerable to exploitation and violence.

If we don’t speak up, these injustices will continue and attackers will go free to rape again. Please get this information to others. Come to the protest with your banners and placards. If you can’t come (or even if you can) write to the following policy-makers to demand change – police and prosecutors who don’t do their job should be sacked (model letter).